A Resurrection

This is something that I penned down for the creative writing competition for the cultural fest at NIT Calicut this year. The organisers were kind enough to adjudge this piece as the best entry. Essentially, I had to come up with something that referred to all three items in the given photo. Hope you enjoy the read!

A Resurrection

All the frantic clicking by the photographers died down the second the Limousine door opened. The constant chatter instantaneously cut down to stolen whispers and indistinct mumbles. The air was heavy with anticipation. They had all been eagerly awaiting this momentous occasion for 15 long years. The whole world was looking forward to this fateful moment.

Their eagerness was duly awarded when a pair of slender legs wearing black Christian Liuboutin pumps stepped on to the red carpet laid out for the 2012 BAFTA Awards. The lady who finally emerged out of the Limousine looked very different from the person whose acting skills had won her a place in the heart of millions of fans. Clad in a black Versace dress, this woman was a mellowed-down version of the Samantha Karen that everyone knew. At her peak, Samantha had been famous for her flamboyant and rather shocking style of dressing.

The world watched in amazement as Samantha gracefully walked across the red carpet, posing only once with a subtle smile playing on her lips. She looked like she had been possessed by a refined and polished soul. The crowd was too stunned to do anything more than give her a nervous smile when their eyes met hers. Some felt proud of her for having come through her struggles; others just pitied how her past had been shadowed by her addiction that had hit the limelight after her drug-overdose which occurred when she was in her prime.

She had shot to fame after the movie ‘Men and Me’ (A Romantic Comedy that was an instant hit in 1991, when it released). The movie had been her first, and it was the top grossing movie in Britain that year. She had acted in various genres and had proved her mettle by donning some really challenging roles like playing the role of an autistic young woman in ‘I am different’, and a young widow in ‘The Aftermath of War’. She went on to win most of the awards for the ‘Best Actress’ title throughout the 1990s.

Some say that the expectations that people placed on her led her to seek solace in alcohol and drugs. Some say she was already headed that way all her life. Some others say that success got to her. She did not expect them to understand her, or her life, or the decisions she made in her life that led her down the path she had taken.

Soon after her recovery from the overdose, her manager had gotten her enrolled into a rehabilitation centre. The first time she got out of that place, she was hounded by paparazzi. Soon she had turned to drugs once again. This cycle repeated two more times. By the time she was out of the rehabilitation centre the fourth and final time, the media was sufficiently bored by her antics that her story was relegated to the sidelines.

And so it was in this apparent desertion by the entire world that she had finally found the strength to stay clean of all her addictions. She had spent the next decade in the shoes of an average middle-aged woman, maintaining a low-profile. She had worked so hard on trying to be left alone that she had ended up being little more than a shadow of her former self.

For the past ten years, she had lived believing that all the glitz and glamour of Celebritydom. Initially it had seemed like a small price to pay to escape the constant scrutinisation by the media; having her each step broadcasted to the entire world. Over time, she had come to reluctantly accept that her past was just a distant shadow that had blurred over time.

Meanwhile, time had slipped by like the sand in an hourglass, and she was now on the stage accepting the award for lifetime achievement award. She had to pinch herself to ensure that it was not another one of her dreams that she would eventually wake up from. No, this was real. It was happening. She was actually holding the trophy.

She moved towards the mike and gave her short acceptance speech; “Thank you all. Thank you for your appreciation for me. Thank you BAFTA for bestowing this great honour upon me. Thank you to everyone out there who have prayed for me. Thank you to the paparazzi for letting me be, for the greater part of the past 15 years. However, and most importantly, thank you to my family; my husband and my kids for standing by me during my hardships.” She looked up from her speech to find the entire audience on their feet, giving her a standing ovation.